1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a guideway transit system which guides a vehicle by holding a guide wheel provided on the vehicle in contact with a guide wall provided on a side of a road, and to an automated vehicle used in such a guideway transit system
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, as shown in FIG. 1, there is known a guideway transit system which guides a vehicle by constraining guide wheels which laterally project from both sides of the vehicle between guide walls provided on both sides of a road ("Computer Simulation of Lateral Guidance System for Automated Guideway Transit Vehicles", Tsunashima and Fukumoto, KOBE STEEL ENGINEERING REPORTS, Vol. 37, No. 4 (1987)).
In this system, guide wheels 21a, 21b, which are connected to each other by a shaft, are provided on a front part of a vehicle 10. The guide wheels 21a, 21b laterally project from both sides of the vehicle 10 and are constrained between guide walls (not shown) which are provided on both sides of a road R. The shaft connecting the guide wheels 21a, 21b is connected to front wheels 11a, 11b, which are steered wheels, of the vehicle 10 via a link mechanism 20. In this system, rear wheels 12a, 12b are not connected to the guide wheels 21a, 21b.
When the guide wheels 21a, 21b, which are in contact with the guide walls, move with the shaft in accordance with a shape of the road R, a relative position of the guide wheels 21a, 21b and the vehicle 10 changes. In this case, the link mechanism functions to steer the front wheels 11a, 11b in accordance with the change in the relative position. Thus, the vehicle 10 can always run along a predetermined path defined on the road R.
In the above-mentioned conventional guideway transit system, since the vehicle is steered by always holding the guide wheels in contact with the guide walls, the guide walls must be provided with relatively high positional accuracy over a whole part of the road on which the vehicle should run. As a length of the road on which the vehicle should run increases, a larger cost is required to construct an infrastructure since it becomes more difficult to provide the guide walls with relatively high accuracy over a whole part of the road.
Additionally, since the vehicle runs with the guide wheels being in contact with the guide walls provided on both sides of the road, vibrations are transmitted from the guide walls to the vehicle via the guide wheels, resulting in ride discomfort for passengers of the vehicle.